34F at 8am and clear, sunny skies. By mid-morning, pillowy cloud cover had rolled through allowing the sun only brief guest appearances. Update: Clear skies again by noon and 40F, turning dirt roads to mud.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
Gusty and 36F at noon and maple syrup tapping has begun in the Catskills region. Bright and sunny despite cloud cover: the landscape appears to be under a giant light box. A strong, squally flurry blew through for an hour or so at 1pm whipping up loose powder into tornados. The clocks went forward an hour last night.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.40pm
© J.N. Urbanski
A friend in NYC asked me last year “don’t you get bored up there?” There’s this mis-conception that we’re a bit dull up here in the mountains, not edgy enough or uncultured. Not so, my friends, for right on my doorstep, literally a hop, skip and jump is the Spills and Sunday night, March 15th, there’ll be live jazz featuring Eric Rosen, Nina Sheldon and Rich Syracuse. What better way to round off the week than lounging around in the Spillian bar listening to live jazz? Spillian, a place to revel, is a unique location in that it’s a boutique hotel that’s wild at heart and a-fire with desire to make you dream, play and “imagine past what you think is possible”. The only goal of proprietors Leigh Melander and Mark Somerfield is that you revel. Last time I meandered with Melander at the Spills, I started to read aloud from a Charles Bukowski novel and instead of being politely shushed and shuffled into a corner, I was given a piano accompaniment (until a dog started howling). For the second year in a row, Spillian has been hosting Soup Sundays and Soup Salons with Voices From the Catskills co-produced by Chris Hensley, a music industry veteran. The Catskills is the place where artists and producers come to produce the entertainment they love and despite our sleepy reputation most of us are crushing it.
Next Sunday at Spillian:
26F at 10.30am with bright rays shining through gaps in the fast-moving clouds. 32F at 1.30pm and partially cloudy. Update: an extended, disheartening flurry of snow from 3.30pm to 5pm and overcast for the rest of the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
18F with cloudless, azure skies and brilliantly sunny at 10am.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.30am The Solar Array at the Catskill Center covered in snow
A nippy 18F at 9am: quite the plummet from an overnight high of 36F at 11pm last night. The chill, still air has formed a crust of impenetrable ice over the snow. The birch obsession continues, a smear of peeling peach in an otherwise monochrome landscape.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
Overnight winds threw foot-high drifts of icy snow against the house but hardly anything on the car. 23F at 9am: calm and gloomy. 36F by 1pm with rolling, grey cloud cover, the sun having made a valiant attempt to emerge, but only lasting a few minutes.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
22F at 9am rising to 26F mid-morning with the sun barely discernible through the haze. An overcast, dull day enlivened only by a Cuban sandwich. Mid-afternoon snowfall with a winter weather advisory in effect forecasting ice and sleet. Update: 18F and heavily snowing by 5.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 5pm “Nevermind about the hail hitting your eyeballs. Throw this stick.”
24F at 9am with hazy cloud covering the sun like thin gauze. Somehow it manages to be bright and enigmatic morning even with the cloud. Overnight snow laid white accents on high branches that sprinkled powder the wind. The creamy peach colour of peeling birch trees stand out against the snow and reflect the sunlight.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
Lightly but steadily snowing at 8am, overcast and grey, but still much warmer at 25F by 10am. Perfect Sunday for a walk with the dog, with the snow continuing for most of the afternoon. Update: Snow continued for the rest of the afternoon and into the night with moderate winds.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
18F at 11.30am with clear skies that dissolve to haze on the horizon. Bright and sunny. 22F at 1.30pm: the arctic torturer recedes north like a winter shadow at dawn.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
14F at 9am, bright and sunny, rising to 18F by 2pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
12F at 8.30am and partly cloudy, rising to 16F by noon. The arctic deep freeze is granting a modicum of relief, like the torturer taking his coffee break.
© Margaret Helthaler Thunder Hill, Grahamsville
12F with hazy sunshine at 8.30am.
© Margaret Helthaler Rondout Reservoir, Grahamsville
10F and gusty at 8am, with powder being blown all over the roads and a thick, white blanket of snow lain over the countryside. A mostly bright morning, with multifarious cloud cover rolling over in waves. Maple tapping should be in full swing. A bone-chilling, windy -2F by 6.30pm with temperatures predicted to plummet to -17F this evening.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am Lonely maple syrup stand that we’ll return to in the Spring…
A balmy 30F at 10am with white light burning through the hazy cloud: a brief respite from the pipe cracking, tree splitting, shoulder hunching, crushing tyranny of the 2015 deep freeze. No wind. The arctic spectre seems to save its wind like a trump card for the coldest, darkest moments. Clear with brilliant sunshine and 34F by the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
12F cloudy and snowing by midday. Heavy powdery snow and whiteout by mid-afternoon with freezing, blustery winds. Got wood?
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Overnight winds had fashioned the snow into intricate patterns. 2F at 9am and blustery. Sun breaking through the hazy cloud. Update: 10F at 1.30pm with periodic gusts of frigid wind.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
9F at 7am, lightly snowing and cloudy: knee deep snow. The snow had stopped by 10am, it became clearer over lunchtime until the sun broke through hazy cloud by 2pm. Trees creaked and cracked in the wind as it whipped up powdery tornados. Laundry day feels like its getting further and further away…
© J.N. Urbanski Wishful thinking…
The deep freeze continues: -6F at 8am with more snow predicted for the day. Brilliant sunshine rising to 23F by 3.30pm.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
Overnight lows of -6F continued into morning “rising” to zero by 10am. Throughout the region, dawn lows were reported anywhere from -14F to -25F. Clear and sunny.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
6F by 9.30am with blustery winds and sunshine arriving by lunchtime. New England got the worst of the deep freeze allegedly. Update: rising to 7F by mid-afternoon, but feels like -23F. More cabin fever…
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 Bell by Nousaku, Japanese master metalworkers dating back to 1609.
© Lori Robin at Cheezehound Headquarters
7F at 9.30am, with yet more snow. Perfect snuggling weather.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
Cabin Fever! Overnight lows in the negative figures: -2F rising to 0F by morning. Some sunshine making up for the frigid temperatures. Only the brave, and dog owners, venture outside. Update to come.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 1pm Catskill Cuisine post by Milton Glaser. “Should you call that meeting?” poster by Wendy McNaughton.
© J.N. Urbanski
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, especially when one has enormous financial commitments. Moreover, if you have cabin fever, it will be compounding any feelings of stagnation as this fresh snowstorm moves in. Many of us are afraid to take a vacation or even lunch breaks. Some of us feel we can’t leave our jobs because of hefty student debt. It’s tempting to approach a certain age or milestone and resign with a sigh, thinking “this is it”.
It doesn’t have to be, however. Even the slightest actions or chance meetings can trigger profound alterations in your life.
Tips:
21F and cloudy with a chance of more snow. Another snowstorm on the way… as if that needed mentioning: more snow sweeps through the Catskills mid-morning. Update: light but steady snow fell into the afternoon.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 8.30am
© Fernando Delgado 12.30pm
14F and bright with clouds rolling in mid- morning.
© MGP&D
A bright morning with more overnight snow and 30F at 10.30am.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
The overnight snowstorm continued into this morning: 20F at 9am. Update: the tortoise of snowstorms… it seemed inconsequential, light and slower than the hare, but steathily dumped a foot or two throughout the day, still sprinkling it like glitter at dusk.
© J.N. Urbanski Midday
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski 11.30am
More overnight snow, a few inches of fresh powder, but a clement 32F at midday. Overcast and gloomy.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Fresh overnight snow; 22F at 9am rising to 25F by the afternoon. More gloom.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
8F at 8.30am with an inch of fresh powder and still snowing into mid-morning. 18F by 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski View From Giant Ledge
The Catskill Center, a non-profit organization formerly known as the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, has been an advocate for this area since its inception in 1969, instigated by Sherret Chase, Armand Erpf and Kingdon Gould Jr, to tackle preservation issues and “foster harmonious economic development” in the region.
In terms of conservation, this region has an advantage over neighbouring areas because it supplies New York City with its drinking water, which travels unfiltered to the city in huge underground tunnels. Should anything sully the NYC drinking water supply, a billion-dollar filtration system would have to be built, something that New York State is keen to avoid, so the waterways are protected by regulation. This regulation hampers development, a significant disadvantage to the local economy, so the proceeds from year-round tourism – 2.5 million tourists annually – are our biggest benefactor. The people of the Catskills sacrifice the growth of their economy so that New York City can drink pristine water.
16F at 8.30am with a few inches of overnight snow. Granite sky with patches of blue made for a magical morning walk. Update: 12F, partially cloudy and much brighter in the afternoon with high winds.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
5F at 8am, with a flurry of fine, icy particles glistening in the rising sun like sinking glitter. Update: 20F and bright sunshine for the rest of the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 8am
An overnight snowstorm dumped a foot of snow with two-feet drifts in some parts, burying cars, sheds and outdoor furniture. 18F at 9am with the snowstorm continuing unabated. Two feet of fluffy snow is catnip for the black lab.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
© Robert E. Block 12.15pm
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
Overcast with early morning flurries and 20F at 8am. Mostly cloudy, brighter and clear by 1.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.48am
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a lovely brew from Organic Traveler’s Tea: rooibos (red African herbs), honeybush, roses, fair trade vanilla, hibiscus, ginger, cardamom and vegan chocolate from Girl & Bee. Earthy and warm, delicately subtly spicy.
© J.N. Urbanski
10F at 8am, dropping sharply to 8F mid-morning. Brilliant sunshine and some snow-bathing. Alfie the Upstate Dispatch media lab, a loving, sensitive, protective, deer-chasing outdoorspuppy with the scariest bark I’ve ever heard, has been with us for a year since we rescued him from the Kingston ASPCA this time last year.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
It’s nice to see what’s going on in the Catskills when you have cabin fever, like a whiteout on Belleayre Mountain and the view from a high window at Spillian. Snowy and 25F, clearing in the afternoon to reveal glorious light and striking colours: simply gorgeous.
© Melissa Zeligman 1.30pm
J.N. Urbanski
In February, for the sheer love of the Catskills, Upstate Dispatch is opening its Daily Catskills project to freelance photographers, and stylish amateurs with a superb eye for color and composition. The Daily Catskills Project was started on September 11th last year on Upstate Dispatch, which publishes one or more images taken on the day at 1pm in the Catskills. Please see today’s post for today’s image which was taken this afternoon.
For the two weeks around Valentine’s Day, UD is inviting photographers to submit their best picture of the Catskills on the day for I ♥ Catskills month. We will pick the best image we receive on the day and publish it and pay a fee to the photographer.
There are only two requirements:
1. The image must be taken on the day that it is published. We’re trusting you.
2. Photographers must give Upstate Dispatch permission to use the image in perpetuity on this website and allow the image to be a part of the UD historical archive for the project. We will not use the work anywhere else without your permission.
There’s more! An exhibition is planned for the Autumn after one year and all photographers published on Upstate Dispatch will have a chance to be part of this exhibition by submitting their own edition of their image(s), getting a chance to offer their work for sale to the public. There is also a proposed book in the works. You will also be invited to be part of that (or not) when the time comes (your choice).
This is a chance to be part of a collaborative project by a young website with a promising future! We are gaining more and more followers every month nationally and internationally. Please feel free to look around the website and see if it looks like an environment in which your work would fit.
Contact [email protected] for details. Please submit images to this email address as a high resolution image for our archive and your exhibition print. We will make a copy and publish at a smaller resolution (roughly 17 x 11 and 72 dpi).
8F at 7.30am with the rising sun clearing the clouds and a fresh dusting of powder covering the tracks.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.30am
19F mid-morning with a light but persistent flurry. Overnight snow had coated the car in a few inches, but left the branches bare. Update: The flurry turned into a whiteout with 4 inches dropped by 1.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
14F at 8am with the Catskills bracing for a winter “blizzard”. Update: New England’s feverishly anticipated “blizzard”, named Juno, turned out to be only a few inches here in the Catskills and NYC. It was also actually a bit warmer at dusk: 20F. Last year’s snow, in which we suffered a few feet for weeks, and thereafter when it formed an icy crust, was far worse.
© J.N. Urbanski 11am
27F and brilliantly clear skies and warm for most of the day, but not warm enough to melt the stalactites around the Pepacton Reservoir.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
20F mid-morning with brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies. The pepacton reservoir, with its shoreline collection of row boats, looks frozen over.
22F with half an inch of fresh powder, overcast and gloomy. 30F and just as sombre by mid-afternoon. Update: cloud cover miraculously dissipated late afternoon to reveal blue skies and sunshine.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
10F at 8am and bitter, overcast and grey with the sun barely burning through the haze.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
20F at 8am with the barest of light flurries filling the air with the rising sun clearing the mountain haze. 30F, clear and brilliantly sunny all afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
28F at 8.30am and overcast with a few inches of fresh powder and very icy roads. Very light flurries in the morning continued throughout the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
28F mid-morning, rising to 36F by midday with a blanket of mist. Heavy rain late morning began to turn the snow to mush. Wet, rainy and miserable for the rest of the day with rain turning to snow as the temperature dropped to 32F after dark.
© J.N. Urbanski
14F at mid-morning rising to 18F by mid-afternoon. Bright sunshine, clear and sunny with scudding clouds late afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski View from Giant Ledge 3.20pm
© J.N. Urbanski The Caboose
A good hearty plate of Fish and Chips is to the Catskills what the Bald Eagle is. When you spot one, you freeze in wide-eyed disbelief and fumble clumsily for your camera trying not to divert your gaze from the (menu) for a second. As an English ex-patriot from London, I find that fish and chips is as rare in these mountains as a McVitie’s digestive biscuit and actual Cheddar from Cheddar.*
You’ll find the holy grail of British food at Arkville Bread & Breakfast on Route 28 in Arkville, New York on every other Friday. (Daily menus are posted on the Facebook page.) I remember, as a teenager, fetching the family’s Friday night fish and chips, the smell of lard, salt and vinegar and paying about five British pounds for the feast. Here you’ll pay $8.95 for a portion that comes with coleslaw, chips and tarter sauce, a snip if you realise that you’ll pay $20 in NYC.
Today’s fish was cod; perfectly cooked, thinly battered, flaky and flavourful. Although the thin, crispy batter is the ideal coating, I almost prefer a thicker batter so that I have an excuse to pick out the steaming fish and save some calories, but no, not this time. All of it was eaten with the tangy tarter sauce and, now, off for a long walk I go. Today’s chips were not chips but crisps, made from Maris Pipers, sliced into flat wedges and fried with the skins on: like a drier, less floppy, two-dimensional version of my childhood chips. Also present (pictured at bottom): Sarsons Malt Vinegar, HP Sauce, Heinz Baked Beans, Branston Pickle, Tango and Spotted Dick. Tango & Spotted Dick sounds like a British detective drama brought to you by the BBC, but no, it’s a neon-coloured fizzy drink and a pudding respectively.
Proprietor Jack Zamor says that a lot of British people attend the restaurant, made from an actual train car and situated right next to a railway line, on the days when he has an All-British menu, the next one of which is slated for February 7th, 2015. Next week, Upstate Dispatch will forget all about the homesickness and return for the corned beef brisket on rye.
© J.N. Urbanski Arkville Bread & Breakfast Fish and Chips
© J.N. Urbanski
*If you have some actual Cheddar, please feel free to comment in the reply section.
A comparatively toasty morning at 22F with brilliant sunshine and mostly cloudless sky making up for the chill. Snow-making on hazy Belleayre Mountain.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.15am
10F at 8am rising to 14F by mid-morning and 24F mid-afternoon with wispy, fleeting cloud cover. The Black Lab is always ready whatever the weather.
© J.N. Urbanski Midday